


lie to me

by OverTheMoonShine



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - All In (Music Video), Angst, Canon Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, ambiguous ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23772538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverTheMoonShine/pseuds/OverTheMoonShine
Summary: The first promise they make when they start dating is never to lie, because there are enough untruths in the world they're living in.(or: Kihyun doesn't know how they can ever be happy.)
Relationships: Son Hyunwoo | Shownu/Yoo Kihyun
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25
Collections: showki mini-bingo 2020





	lie to me

**Author's Note:**

> written for the "canon verse" square of the [showki bingo](https://twitter.com/ShowkiMiniBingo)

The first promise they make when they start dating is never to lie. It had been an unremarkable day when they finally relented to the undeniable truth of their affection for each other, the way they knew that above all, there was no one they held dearer, no one else they would do anything, everything for.

Perhaps it’s telling that Kihyun had frowned as they discussed this, as matter of fact as possible, as clinical as their situation demanded of it, that Shownu couldn’t look him in the eye, keeping his gaze fixed on the brick wall just behind his head. The question of _so what do we do now?_ hung unanswered in the air, the very fact that _there is no such thing as love in the place we’re in_ loomed dark and heavy over both their heads.

“No lies,” Kihyun had said eventually, his hand had somehow gravitated towards Shownu’s during the conversation, an unwilling object caught in the power of his orbit. He doesn’t think he would have been able to escape, even if he wanted to. “If we can’t do that, then we can’t do this.”

Shownu nodded, finally looking at Kihyun. They were sitting a metre apart, their reluctant hands the only contact between them, yet Kihyun felt like he had never been closer to Shownu in that moment. In Shownu’s gaze, as unwavering as his person always, always was, he let himself feel, just for that very second, hopeful that their union could stay unsullied by the pollution that surrounded them. 

“I promise,” Shownu said, and in that moment, he had meant it.

-

Their relationship had always been built on silences. 

The awkward, tense silences that filled the space between them when Shownu first appeared in the home. He wasn’t like the rest of them, he didn’t exactly _belong,_ was the general initial sentiment, dirty looks thrown his way, when they thought his back was turned. It wasn’t that Shownu had done anything wrong. But amongst the others who had lost their parents, who had run away from violent homes (everyone knew that Hyungwon's dad was an asshole), Shownu - with his doting father, who then was still alive, still well - represented everything that they had lost. Everything that the Administration had taken away from them.

Yet, they needed someone like him. Unflappable and calm, even in the face of conflict, who could be another voice of reason when Jooheon and Minhyuk got overly excited, as they often did when drawing up plans, long used to and immune to Kihyun’s caution and nagging. Who could talk them down from the metaphorical ledge, when their dreams inflated too large, they threatened to take up all the oxygen in the room. 

“You can trust me,” Shownu had said, one time when it was just him and Kihyun in the room, breaking the quiet that had curdled into an almost solid being between them. 

He doesn’t begrudge Kihyun for making no indication of hearing him. The home had seen its fair share of new-comers, promises tumbling from their lips at that time, eyes once burning with the fervour of the committed. There had been no reason for Kihyun, nor any of them, as tight-knit a family they had become, to trust him. Even so, Shownu continued, “I’m willing to wait, until you do.”

Then, next, silences that rose and fell in between the gaps of their conversation, like waves gently washing onto the shore, tentative in their presence, almost. 

The things unsaid in the way that Shownu always stayed by Kihyun’s side when they went on their missions (what a self-aggrandising word for the childish pranks they played - like the graffiti they spray-painted in the middle of the night made much difference; like talking back to soldiers ever helped anyone, but only served to make them feel better about themselves). The way Kihyun seemed to always portion out his food first, when Shownu could join them for meals, explaining it away with, “It’s rare when you do.”

And now this, a silence built to protect. Filled with untold truths and unasked questions, because if you weren’t asked, then you could never lie. And if you never lied, then you would never be like the soldiers that patrolled the streets, who said they wielded guns to protect the people and only did the things they did to serve the nebulous concept of the greater good.

So Shownu doesn’t ask what happened when he finds Kihyun, a crumpled figure, hidden in the bushes near the soldier’s barracks, his left knee-cap smashed in. He doesn’t ask about what’s in his boyfriend’s back-pack (boyfriend is still a strange foreign phrase that his mind has yet to fully wrap around), takes no notice of the guilty looks on Minhyuk’s and Changkyun’s faces when he finally hauls Kihyun home, so delirious from the pain that he can barely speak.

When Kihyun wakes up in the clinic (if the ram-shackle shed, set up by a former doctor who had been disbarred by the Administration for his incendiary talk could be called that), Shownu is beside him, clutching Kihyun’s hand tightly, even in his sleep. He doesn’t tell Kihyun, _the doctor says the injury was minor, he says you’ll recover fully_ and Kihyun doesn’t say _it didn’t hurt at all_.

“Thank your friend for bringing you here,” the doctor says, nodding at Shownu, brows furrowed. “It could have been worse.”

 _Worse than never walking properly again?_ Kihyun bites back the reply, shoves it into the chasm within him, where he locks away everything else he knows he can’t say. The doctor leaves him with a fist-full of medication, bright multi-coloured pills that don’t belong in his grimy palm. He knows how much each of these are worth, tries to push them back, when the doctor insists that, “You’ll need it for the pain.”

“We’ll take them, thank you,” Shownu cuts in, before Kihyun can say anything else. He leans in to whisper something quietly in the doctor’s ear, and the older man nods, before leaving the shed.

Kihyun doesn’t ask, later, when the pain is so unbearable he has to take a pill, how Shownu had paid the doctor back. What he had to do, what he had to give up . Because if there is a truth that goes unchallenged in this world: it’s that life is a continuous game of transactions; yet, it feels like they have less and less to bargain with.

But with the pain subsiding with the chemical help, Kihyun lets it go. For now, in the quiet of the night, with only the sound of Shownu snoring lightly beside him (a sound he didn’t think he could get used to at first, but now something like a warm blanket on a cold night), he wants to turn away from reality. 

Indulgences are dangerous, and maybe it’s the drugs talking. The only thing he wants to believe in is the boy - not old enough, not yet, to be called a man, he thinks, despite what they have gone through - next to him, who holds the impossible promise that somehow, they would find a way to make everything okay.

(Shownu comes home the next day, bruised up with a cut lip, his clothes muddied and dirtied. He doesn’t have to say anything for them to know it’s a debt paid, and Minhyuk, still guilty from master-minding the failed scheme the day before, doesn’t pry. 

Hobbling on his crutch, even with fireworks of pain igniting in his knee, Kihyun helps him get clean, tends to his wounds, kisses the scratches on his knuckles, the bruises on his face. 

He holds him tight, that night, until Shownu’s breathing, breathing that had been shaking with silent sobs they both don’t acknowledge, evens out into the quiet rhythm of sleep. With the stars as his witness, Kihyun says, “No matter what, I’ll be by your side.”)

-

The first few weeks of recovery don’t exist outside the realm of pain. 

Even with the pills, each movement is utter agony, almost as if Kihyun can feel the shards of bone grinding against each other, turning into sand in his joint. He tries to bear this in a dignified silence at first, but there’s nothing dignified about biting down on your lip so hard, it starts bleeding, spotting your already grimy shirt with little drops of blood. 

“Don’t say anything,” Kihyun says, between gritted teeth and heavy breaths, as Wonho hovers worriedly around him. Despite it being a cool afternoon, he’s drenched in sweat, from the sheer exhaustion that comes from forcing your body to move in ways you once could but no longer can. The house is empty apart from the two of them, the rest out on small jobs or doing lord knows what. Kihyun has the sneaking suspicion that Shownu had forced Wonho to stay behind to baby-sit him. There’s always been someone in the house, hanging around him since the Accident (he refuses to call it anything else, to give the attack a real name would be giving them too much power over him).

Wonho opens his mouth to say something, but Kihyun cuts in, “Shownu doesn’t need to know.”

“That’s not what he said.”

“He doesn’t know anything,” Kihyun shoots back. He takes a deep breath from where he’s sitting on the floor, pushes off the ground with his crutch, and ignores the stabbing pain that almost causes him to black-out. Barely steady on his feet, but on his feet nonetheless, he gives Wonho a triumphant look, eyebrow cocked, which the older boy pointedly ignores.

Wonho sighs, leaning against the door-frame of their room, “That’s because you don’t tell each other anything.”

“I tell him -” Kihyun pauses, _everything_ being a definite untruth. Well, he didn’t promise not to lie to Wonho. “- everything.”

“Sure, you do,” answers Wonho, his reply dripping with sarcasm. 

Kihyun blinks, surprised. Sarcastic remarks are usually best left to Changkyun or Minhyuk, never Wonho. 

The surprise must show on his face more obviously than he thought, because Wonho backs down almost immediately, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just -” He shrugs, gesturing around the small room that once belonged to Kihyun only, but had slowly amassed Shownu’s belongings over the months as well. While Shownu still stayed with his father mostly, he’d been spending more nights over. Whether it's out of guilt from not being there when Kihyun went on the mission alone that had landed him with the Accident or because he genuinely wanted to stay over, Kihyun never bothered to ask, didn't want to know. “It’s frustrating to see you two like this.”

“Like what?” 

“So stubborn, you don’t want to talk about anything,” Wonho says, all in a rush. There’s a slightly guilty expression on his face - that’s always been his flaw, he’s always hated confrontations - yet he barrels on, “You both obviously care for each other so much. But what’s the point of sharing your heart with someone, if you don’t tell them anything.”

It’s the burning ferocity in Wonho’s words, the way he’s looking at Kihyun with a look that’s both full of pity and envy. He continues, and each syllable feels like a blow to Kihyun’s heart, punches through him with greater force than the one that broke his knee, “Don’t let this world take away what you have.”

The world feels like it’s spinning - and Kihyun could blame it on his compromised balance, but he knows that’s a lie. Instead, he says, head ducked down so that Wonho can’t see his tears, “What if, sometimes, it feels like it already has?”

-

It’s not a secret that Shownu’s father is in the hospital.

It’s not a secret that their family’s savings are running low, and that the Administration has no qualms about kicking out people who can’t pay.

It’s not a secret that Shownu has been working as hard as he can, stringing together as many odd jobs as possible, in order to prolong the extent of his father’s treatment. It’s five months after Kihyun’s injury, and he presses whatever money he manages to scrape together doing random tasks with his limited mobility into Shownu’s hands, refusing to accept no as an answer.

It’s not a secret that that will never be enough.

So when Shownu comes back with a bag bulging with bills, Kihyun doesn’t say anything; and Shownu honours this by not offering an explanation. If Kihyun finds two black ski masks stuffed amongst Shownu’s belongings, and a toy pistol that looks so realistic he almost drops it in fright when he picks it up, he doesn’t bring it up either.

He swallows down all these unasked questions when Shownu finally joins him in bed later that night, wordlessly slipping underneath the ratty covers to curl around Kihyun. He probably knows that Kihyun is just faking sleep, yet doesn’t say anything. Simply wraps an arm around him and pulls him closer, pressing his face against the back of Kihyun’s head. Takes a deep breath and lets out a long sigh, Kihyun can feel his exhaustion seeping through his skin, making his limbs feel heavy as well. His knee twinges in pain, like it always does, but it’s something he’s gotten used to.

Shownu says quietly, the words shrouded in the darkness of the night, “I’m sorry.”

Kihyun only shifts closer to him in his sleep, their proximity an answer in itself.

-

“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone before,” Kihyun says, on a sunny day out, when they finally reach their destination: a small clearing in the meadow, about 20 minutes from their house. He’s grown well used to walking through the ruins that form the outskirts of their town, even with his crutches. It had been Shownu’s idea to come out for a picnic, just the two of them. With the little food they had, Kihyun didn’t think this could truly count as a picnic, but they’d found a greying checkered blanket to use as a mat so he couldn’t complain. “The more embarrassing, the better.”

Shownu chuckles, “Why does it have to be embarrassing?”

“For my enjoyment,” Kihyun answers, enjoying the breeze that’s whistling through the air. The sky is a brilliant azure blue above them. It feels like a good day, like they could be anywhere in the world, just two silly teens enjoying a hike out, in a normal world where people went on simple dates like that.

“In that case, I’m not saying anything,” Shownu answers, with that half smirk-half grin that honestly drives Kihyun wild. Rather than grant him a reply, Kihyun rolls his eyes and plops down, resting his head on Shownu’s thigh.

He closes his eyes, only concentrates on the wind against his skin, the solidity of Shownu's presence underneath him. It smells like spring around them - the fresh, clean kind, that doesn’t belong to the greying world of the Administration. He can catch Shownu’s scent underneath it, woodsy and slightly earthy, like a camp-fire on a chilly night. There are so many things his heart aches for, so many things that seem to hover just out of his reach.

“Hyung?” Kihyun asks, his eyes still closed. He doesn’t think he can look at Shownu for this, but he feels his boyfriend move, as if looking down at him.

“Mmm.”

He can imagine that dopey smile that Shownu has sometimes on his face, and it gives him confidence to continue, although the question comes out softer than he intends, “Do you think we’ll ever be happy?”

A pause, then - “Happiness is only what we make of it.”

Kihyun can’t help the scoff that jumps out of his throat. He opens his eyes to see a serious Shownu, whose head is now tilted upwards, towards the sky. Even from this angle, Kihyun can see that his eyebrows are knitted together, in concentration, contemplating his next words. There’s a gentle warmth - such an unfamiliar feeling happiness is - that spreads through Kihyun’s body, and it tugs at the corners of Kihyun’s lips.

“I’m happy, right now,” Shownu says so simply that there’s no doubt that it has to be true. He darts a look down at Kihyun, and continues, more shyly, “Here with you.”

“Yea, me too,” Kihyun says, the warmth like bubbles fizzing, tingling through him. He holds out his hand, and Shownu immediately reaches over to take it. His palms are coarse from all the work that they do, but Kihyun doesn’t mind. “I’m happy, here with you.”

Shownu lets out a self-conscious laugh, and lifts up his other arm to rub at the back of his beck. Kihyun’s grin turns into laughter too, and soon both of them are wheezing with laughter, not very sure what exactly they’re laughing at, but knowing that laughter is too rare a commodity to waste by questioning its existence.

After all, deep down, Kihyun knows, this scene is just a lie. Their happiness can never last.

-

When Kihyun finds Shownu at the hospital, his back turned away from the door, he irrationally thinks that Shownu is on fire as well, and all but sprints into the room (knee injury, be damned), ready to swat out the flames. He calls out, adrenaline spiking, “Shownu-hyung!”

Shownu turns around. It’s then that Kihyun realises the small piles of fire are bundles of money, each curling slowly into ash, and that Shownu’s face is tear-streaked. He sees the empty bed behind his boyfriend, the flower laid on the blankets. Stumbling towards him, as if he’s off balance, Shownu crashes into Kihyun, tucks his head in Kihyun’s shoulder, “He’s gone.”

“I couldn’t do anything to save him,” he’s still saying, words tumbling from his lips, incoherent in their grief. He wraps his arms so tightly around Kihyun, he can almost feel his ribs crack, but Kihyun only puts his arms around Shownu in response, holding him closer. From above Shownu’s shoulder, Kihyun can see the burning money around them, turning into nothing - hates that even in this situation, he’s already trying to total up the amount that’s in the room, figure out how much can still be saved so that they would be able to buy something to eat tomorrow. “I was too late.”

In the distance, Kihyun thinks he can hear the sound of sirens, the warbling seemingly getting closer with each second. He doesn’t know if it’s for them, or for another poor soul in the town, another who has traded their humanity for a cheap shot at hauling themselves out of the hole they’re in.

There are so many things that he doesn’t know, can never know, can never do.

All he can manage, right now, is to hold Shownu, as close as he can. He says, trying to believe it with all of his might, but he feels something within him break, that beautiful picture of a sunny day picnic shattering, with the first lie he’s ever said, “Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.”

Shownu nods, as if he believes him, complicit in the deception - because what else do they have left, apart from this. 

Apart from each other.

**Author's Note:**

> i've to admit that this was written in a rush - and that the two scenes i wanted to write had no weight to them, so if this fic has little to it, there you have your explanation!
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoyed it and do leave a comment or something below <:
> 
> that or come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/legofroggo), thanks for reading!


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